PLANT

I listened to my dad’s story for the 7th time. I sat down on the floor that was covered in a pile of masks - cushy cushy for the tushy, as he sang. His story followed:

“The pandemic began with a seed. It was a seed that prospered in an old pot that I got from my mom when she was going through my Grandpa’s old stuff. It was this old porcelain thing, sturdy enough to grow whatever I put into it. As soon as I saw it, I knew it belonged on my studio’s dusty windowsill, next to my laundry basket where I threw my comfy pants that I wandered the street in. Next to where your crib is now. Perfection.

But the pot didn’t start the pandemic - the seed did. I was a simple house plant seed, something that some guy I grabbed coffee with gave me as a parting gift, that naive hippie. I never even bothered to look up what kind of plant it was - to be honest I didn’t want to know.

On March 1st, I put it in my soil-filled pot, gave it some gross Mississippi River water, thanked grandpa up above, and promptly went back to reading some weird Vice article. Three weeks later, the plant sprouted just as my phone lit up telling me that my state got its first virus case. Weird timing, I thought.

The millisecond my perfect seedling got up to exactly one inch high - which only took a few days - my state got its first pandemic death. I watched the numbers of dead grow as my plant thrived in the southern-facing window. I was a bystander as my plant fed on the sunshine and the liquid fertilizer and the feeling of safety people used to have when going to the store. On the day when the plant’s first leaf became visible to my eye, I couldn’t find one damn roll of toilet paper at the market.”

-----

We shuffled some stuff around - soon the food delivery people would be here, but dad didn’t like them handing us the food. He didn’t even like us sharing the same air with them, so we took some towels and stuffed them under the front door. I ran too fast to the door and fell - shit that hurt - and was about to start crying. But the look dad gave me told me otherwise - he wanted to share his story, and I was the only one who would ever hear it. 

“I came back from my nightly walk,” he began again. “No pandemic can stop me from wanting to smell the streets of my city - ha! That’s what I thought at least. 3 AM was when I opened the door. 3 AM my phone rang. 3 AM I looked up to see that somehow, in the middle of the night, the Plant had begun to flower. May 5th at 3 AM. The morning that I found out that my brother was in the hospital and that my Plant was trying to kill him. 

I glared at the Plant - why couldn’t it spare me the pain it was causing the rest of the world!? I was here to love it, water it, nurture it... yet it ignored my existence. I left my studio unlocked as I did an about-face to go visit my parents. We couldn’t see Charlie in the Emergency Room, and frankly I think that place would kill my dad, but I could comfort my parents from outside their window. 

I ran up to their place, a shanty among ruins in this part of the region, ready to tell them the likelihood of everything being okay. I stood in front of the door I grew up behind - a well-polished oak door that was sturdy by itself but even sturdier now that it sat behind an intricate, distasteful security door. But as I stood there, the door screamed. It was unhappy and in need of help. I looked around - my head turning to try to understand what was wrong! As I peered downwards, I found the reason. Someone, likely my inane younger sister, had the audacity to place a pot here. The pot looked like mine - a poor duplicate of grandpa’s original, I’m sure - but it had some bastard flower in it. My Plant was being challenged, by the likelihood of some trash-ridden daisies. 

‘Nope,’ I thought as I roundhouse-kicked it away from me. 

‘Nope,’ I thought as I dashed from the door as soon as I saw a light inside come on. 

I came back here, to my studio, to our Plant.”

----

Dad scooped some pumpkin mush into my mouth while he ate his now-cold pizza. 

“They betrayed me by putting that out there. They betrayed us and they challenged Plant. This is why Charlie was in the hospital. Plant didn’t want to hurt me, but what could it do when my parents’ put that disgusting replica on their stoop? 

Charlie was getting better and I knew that me destroying the other pot was the reason why. Lola, listen to me. Never, ever think about challenging its power. It’ll probably kill you.”

I nodded my head as my eyes moved the wall behind dad. A cockroach was drinking some water droplets off the wall. I wanted to lick the droplets too. 

“Lola! I’m not done. I sat with Plant all day and night thanking it for Charlie’s health. I didn’t mind when the deaths reached 100,000 on the morning in August when Plant reached one foot high; I was spared and my younger brother was alive. Until suddenly the virus killed him the next week, the same week I saw that the disgusting fake pot had been glued back together and Plant sprouted its fourth branch.”

I had heard this enough to know what this part of the story meant. His parents messed up; his parents killed Charlie. I got up and sped around the room. I think I had pooped myself at some point but I would cry about my diaper later. I ran over to the mattress that was up against the windows, blocking out the majority of any light that tried to enter. I punched it, again and again. I would never meet Charlie, and dad’s parents were to blame. 

“I know, I know. I feel it too. Plant tried to warn them - I should’ve dropped their pot in a river. But they gave it a reason to take Charlie from us, and now they’re out of our lives for good. Plant does not want to take, you see. But in order to grow, it has to get its nutrients from somewhere. It's just balancing the world out. It allowed me to help it do that. It allowed me to live my life through this pandemic and still go out in the evenings. 

Until the night that someone ransacked this place - the same night I got you - it was everything. But my time with Plant was up. I opened the studio to see my checks gone, my jewelry taken, and an empty, dusty ring where Plant should have been.

I raged! It needed tending to. It needed care. I reported the crime and ran down the streets to find it. And I came back with you in my arms. I couldn’t be alone, and the look you gave me helped me know that with time you would understand. You would help recover Plant with me. You would recover Plant for us.

They must be treating Plant well, though. The pandemic just keeps getting worse out there. Since Plant is no longer here to protect us, we have to stay inside. You hear me, Lola? You can not leave until we have a plan for where to search for it. We won’t survive when the people of the city don’t know how to stop coughing all over us. We stay inside.”

I nodded, knowing that this was my prerogative in life. I wish Plant was here to help. The studio was enough, but I wanted to run. One day in the near future I know I could help dad. I know the one thing in life that would happen would be to connect with Plant and be shielded from the virus that it controlled.